Yew Hunting Bow Build-a-long

[Weylin]

I'm glad people are finding this interesting. I'll try to keep posting as I go.

Markus, I know it looks rough with the cambium in patches but the sapwood's in good shape. You'll see in later pictures that it's a clean back.

[Sidewinder]

I love your work Weylin, I'm looking forward to this.  Danny

[IdahoMatt]

Man I just love build alongs.  Can't wait to see more

[Weylin]

Now I lay out the center line. This is a straight stave so I can use a string to make the center line without worrying about violating the grain. On a snakey stave I would simply do the center line by hand following the crown down the length of the stave.



Then I find the center of the stave and mark it with a line.



I decided to make the top limb 1" longer than the bottom so make the 4" handle offset by one inch.



Then 2" on either side for the fades



The handle is 1" at the ends and 1 1/4" in the middle. It widens out to 1 5/8" at the fades. I wanted to make it 1 3/4" wide but whoever bandsawed the stave left a narrow spot. You gotta work with what you've got! Luckily yew tolerates narrower designs so it should be fine.



I'm doing an American flatbow design that maintains the full width out to mid limb. so I find the middle of each limb and measure out the 1 5/8" there too. I connect the lines from the fades to mid limb. Then I do a straight taper from full width at mid limb down to 1/2" at the tips.

[Weylin]

Now it's time to get rid of some extra wood. A bandsaw would work great for this but for those of you like me that are power tool deprived a hatchet and a draw knife work just fine. I start at the tip and work my way up so that I don't accidentally catch the grain and tear out more than I want. I stay away from my final dimensions with the hatchet, just getting close. Then with the draw knife I work my way down to the lines. First I wanted to get rid of a fair amount of my belly wood so that I'm not wasting time and effort drawknifing a really thick stave down to the width dimensions. I'm careful though not to get it so thin that its ready to bend at all. This is still rough work.





Here's the stave after I've thinned it down a bit and reduced the width to the lines that I had drawn on the back of the bow. I leave the handle section full width and with plenty of thickness. This will let me fine tune the string alignment after the bow is braced.

[Weylin]

Even though I reduced the thickness some it is still way to thick to bend, as you can see.



So my next step is to draw a line that will get me close to bending the bow. There's no magic formula for this because every piece of wood is different. I go based on intuition and if anything I ere on the side of leaving it too thick. To draw the line I lock my hand on the back of the bow and place the pencil at what seems like a good thickness. I drag the pencil down the bow and my hand follows the contours of the back creating a consistent thickness taper. I gradually increase the thickness of the profile as I travel from tip to handle. It's not rocket surgery at this point, I'm just trying to get in the ballpark.



Then with the drawknife I bring it down to my line. You can see I didn't dig down into the valleys with my drawknife. I'll clean those up later with a rasp. I don't want to risk pulling up more than I want so I'm being pretty careful with the drawknife at this point. I also left plenty of thickness at the handle for now.

[Badly Bent]

Its looking good Weylin.  I'll be following this post, always enjoy when someone takes the time to post their working methods.

[Weylin]

Now it's time to clean up the stave a little and get rid of the rough tool marks. I can bring everything right down to the line now and get the sides squared off better. I'm using a Microplane here, it's a great tool. I went out and got one after using Gordon's. They're slick.



Next I measure out some lines down the side of my bow so that each limb has corresponding lines in 6" increments. I use these lines to compare the same areas on each limb to match the thickness. This isn't a crucial step it's just something I came up with to help even up the limbs and get the taper on the right track before I get into the fine tuning.



I use some outside calipers to compare the corresponding spot on both limbs. If one side is thicker I reduce it down to match the other side. I'm also comparing spots along one limb to make sure it's tapering smoothly. Once I get the limbs tapering smoothly and matching each other then I'm ready to move on.





This stave has a lovely contrast between the sapwood and heartwood.

[Drewster]

Thanks for taking the time to do this Weylin.  I've never had the opportunity to work any yew, so this is most interesting.

[Aaron H]

Very cool Weylin.  Looks great

[bubby]

That is a pretty stave

[coaster500]

This channel is worth staying tuned to.....  Lookin good!!

[Peacebow_Coos]

Lookin good Weylin, is the microplane like a surform? the blade looks similar

[missilemaster]

Beautiful piece if yew!

[Weylin]

Peacebow, it is like a surform but I like it better. It really takes the wood off smoothly but aggressively. It's especially good for vine maple. Vine Maple is the bane of just about every tool. It doesn't like drawknives, scrapers, rasps, etc. but the microplane does the job on it.